What does this billionaire investor think of ETH, DeFi, CBDCs and NFTs?
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban has been quite bullish and vocal on matters regarding cryptocurrencies and blockchain in the recent past. The entrepreneur spoke about the Ethereum network and thinks that blockchain technology could be a game-changer for various industries.
In a recent interview, Cuban referred to Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559, as well as ETH 2.0, as reasons for investors to buy Ether over Bitcoin at this time.
“With 1559 everything changes and what happens going forward is really going to impact how people perceive it specifically as a store of value,” he noted.
EIP 1559 is scheduled to go live this July as part of the London hard fork. It will overhaul Ethereum’s transaction fee system by replacing the auction model with a floating standard rate mechanism that moves in line with network congestion.
Further, Cuban spoke about Defi and its presence over the years. This domicile to digital money, global payments, and applications led to some of the most notable Defi projects of the ICO era. It was from this point forward that it became clear that the public was warming up to Defi. Mark Cuban compared the growth of Defi to the early days of the Internet:
“You’re starting to see NFT (non-fungible tokens), and it’s not so much about just about how much is sold, market value, but more just that people are becoming more comfortable with it and so we’re starting to see these applications that are just popping up left and right. It reminded me so much of the early days of the internet where, in the mid-90s, people started talking about internet applications but the internet had been around for ten years.”
Cuban has been a believer in DeFi’s power and potential, especially considering the new all-time highs of token prices being reached by Ethereum, and so-called “Ethereum killer” protocols such as Polkadot and Solana.
He shared a similar optimism towards a transition to CBDCs and their wide potential adoption across the globe. He stated:
“It really, and one of the points I’ve been making is, we lose money on every penny, nickel, dime, and quarter that we manufacture. That turns out to be hundreds of millions of dollars per year. And you could spend, you’d have to invest a little bit more upfront, but by transitioning to a CBDC, there are so many things we can do that would make life better for our citizens.”
Jumping on to the NFTs next, the renowned investor spoke about his NFT investment strategy. He said, “in terms of what NFTs I buy, I buy the things that I like to look at.” He recently invested in the NFT marketplace Mintable.
In addition, he bought and sold NFTs, including a Maxi Kleber dunk “moment,” which is a video clip collectible made by the NFT platform NBA Top Shot. Mark Cuban sees a lot of promise in the future of NFTs or nonfungible tokens. In fact, Cuban is now looking for ways to use the technology to bring in more money for his NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks. Speaking to DealBook, Cuban revealed that he decided to accept payments in DOGE “because we can.” Stating that sometimes in business “you have to do things that are fun” he added:
“We have chosen to do so because sometimes in business you have to do things that are fun, engaging, and hopefully generate a lot of PR. So we will take Dogecoin, today, tomorrow, and possibly forevermore.”